June 14 Andrea Rosen Gallery Is Delighted to Announce David Altmejd

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

June 14 Andrea Rosen Gallery Is Delighted to Announce David Altmejd PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE David Altmejd May 3 – June 14 Andrea Rosen Gallery is delighted to announce David Altmejd’s second solo exhibition at the gallery and his first one-person show in New York since 2004. One of the pleasures of following Altmejd’s career is being witness to an artist with an insatiable passion for the opportunity to grow his practice in scope and complexity. In 2007 alone, Altmejd was not only selected as one of the youngest artists to represent a country at the Venice Biennale, but also produced a stunning body of work that many considered one of the most impressive of the national pavilions. Speaking to his ability to conjure new and more incredible works, Altmejd helped inaugurate the newly designed Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver with a mirrored installation of six colossal giants only six months after turning the notoriously challenging space of the Canadian pavilion into a jewel-like aviary. Altmejd’s diverse and varied oeuvre includes his familiar platform-like structures punctuated by mirrored reliquaries of crystals, flowers, birds, and werewolf bodies and body parts, an inventive assortment of singular werewolf heads, clear Plexiglas boxes filled with an intricate tracery of gold chains, his spectacular aviary filling the Canadian Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, uncanny part-bird part-human sculptures, a sculptural clock representing the temporal process of its making, and most recently colossal giants. This array of characters and forms speaks not only to Altmejd’s inventiveness but also to the strength of his aesthetic and conceptual program. Instead of an incongruent assortment of ideas and objects, Altmejd’s body of work is always recognizably his own, simultaneously expansive and coherent. For this exhibition Altmejd will present a body of new giants. The works being created for this exhibition are unique in their use of every part of Altmejd’s pre-existing vocabulary to create a group that expands the language of the giants, with each being completely different from another. The giants, while evoking the history of monumental sculpture, also incorporate the more recent discourse of Minimalism and the Part Object. Altmejd melds and weaves the disparate yet connected institutional critique of Minimalism and its radical eradication of visual incident with the luscious surfaces and psychological eruptions of the work of artists associated with the Part Object, which, to quote art historian and critic Helen Molesworth, are works that seem “skeptical of language’s ability to contain our bodily experiences” and offer “a series of imperfect vessels, cast objects filled with the matter of their own making, surfaces resistant to words.” Altmejd is known for creating works which set up a duality between a geometric architectural space and more figurative material, manifest in his well known platform-like sculptures housing a glittering cabinet of curiosities. In the giants, the figure also becomes the structure, melding the two formal facets of hard-edged and amorphic. The body itself is pictured as a contingent form, a psychic container, and a field of unending transformation and renewal governed by social and environmental forces. Like a biological organism, Altmejd’s sculptures are always in a state of becoming. Mirrored, spiraling staircases are a visual metaphor of infinity and the seemingly growing clusters of crystals and mirrored cubes, hair, and stalactite epoxy clay all work to picture a sculpture in a constant state of change. In the viewer’s imagination, Altmejd’s work operates not as a presentation, but rather, as a material with which to construct and reconstruct meaning over and over again. In a world where we have become used to having to decode the artist’s intentions, Altmejd presents work so filled with content and embedded with meaning that it allows the viewer to bypass the need for a simple intellectual explanation and allows him or her to instead become a visceral participant in the construction of worlds that much like our own are forever a mystery, infinite in their ability to change, generous in meaning—a world of glittering growth and sublime decay, of heart rending pain and ravishing desire. David Altmejd received his BFA in visual art from Université du Québec à Montréal in 1998 and his MFA from Columbia University in 2001. Altmejd’s work has been included in the 2003 Istanbul Biennial, the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and in 2007 Altmejd represented Canada at the Venice Biennale. For 2008 he has been selected to participate in La Triennale québécoise at Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal and the Liverpool Biennial at Tate Liverpool. Altmejd’s works can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum, New York, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. For more information and images please contact Jeremy Lawson: [email protected] .
Recommended publications
  • Omer Fast: Nostalgia
    Press Release Whitney Museum of American Art Contact: 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street Stephen Soba New York, NY 10021 Molly Gross whitney.org/press Tel. (212) 570-3633 Fax (212) 570-4169 [email protected] NOSTALGIA, BY BUCKSBAUM AWARD-WINNER OMER FAST, RECEIVES NEW YORK DEBUT AT THE WHITNEY Nostalgia III (production still), 2009 Super 16mm film transferred to high-definition video, color, sound; 32:48 minutes Photograph by Thierry Bal; courtesy gb agency, Paris; Postmasters, New York; and Arratia, Beer, Berlin. NEW YORK, November 18, 2009 – Omer Fast: Nostalgia is a new three-part film and video installation that continues Fast's fascination with exploring configurations of fact and fiction through narrative and filmic constructions, intertwining modes of documentary and dramatization. In this exhibition, organized by Tina Kukielski, senior curatorial assistant, the work receives its New York debut at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where it will be seen from December 10, 2009, through February 14, 2010. It is presented as part of the 2008 Bucksbaum Award, conferred on Fast for significant contributions to the visual arts in the United States. Endowed by Whitney Trustee Melva Bucksbaum and her family, the Bucksbaum Award is given every two years to an artist chosen from the Museum’s Biennial exhibition. (The next recipient will be selected from among the artists in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, which opens to the public on February 25.) Nostalgia (2009) begins with a fragment from an interview between the artist and an African refugee seeking asylum in London, during which the artist/interviewer is told how the refugee built a trap for catching a partridge back home in his native Nigeria.
    [Show full text]
  • Screening Guides to the Sixth Season
    art:21 screening guides to the sixth season © Art21 2012. All Rights Reserved. www.pbs.org/art21 | www.art21.org season six GETTING STARTED ABOUT THIS SCREENING GUIDE unique opportunity to experience first-hand the complex artistic process—from inception to finished This screening guide is designed to help you plan product—behind some of today’s most thought- an event using Season Six of Art in the Twenty-First provoking art. These artists represent the breadth Century. This guide includes an episode synopsis, of artistic practices across the country and the artist biographies, discussion questions, group world and reveal the depth of intergenerational activities, and links to additional resources online. and multicultural talent. Educators’ Guide The 32-page color manual ABOUT ART21 SCREENING EVENTS includes information on the ABOUT ART21, INC. artists, before-viewing and Public screenings of the Art in the Twenty-First after-viewing questions, and Century series illuminate the creative process of Art21 is a non-profit contemporary art organization curriculum connections. today’s visual artists by stimulating critical reflection serving students, teachers, and the general public. FREE | www.art21.org/teach as well as conversation in order to deepen Art21’s mission is to increase knowledge of contem- audience’s appreciation and understanding of porary art, ignite discussion, and empower viewers contemporary art and ideas. Organizations and to articulate their own ideas and interpretations individuals are welcome to host their own Art21 about contemporary art. Art21 seeks to achieve events year-round. Art21 invites museums, high this goal by using diverse media to present an schools, colleges, universities, community-based independent, behind-the scenes perspective on organizations, libraries, art spaces and individuals contemporary art and artists at work and in their to get involved and create unique screening own words.
    [Show full text]
  • The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy Global
    THE POLITICS OF URBAN CULTURAL POLICY GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES Carl Grodach and Daniel Silver 2012 CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables iv Contributors v Acknowledgements viii INTRODUCTION Urbanizing Cultural Policy 1 Carl Grodach and Daniel Silver Part I URBAN CULTURAL POLICY AS AN OBJECT OF GOVERNANCE 20 1. A Different Class: Politics and Culture in London 21 Kate Oakley 2. Chicago from the Political Machine to the Entertainment Machine 42 Terry Nichols Clark and Daniel Silver 3. Brecht in Bogotá: How Cultural Policy Transformed a Clientist Political Culture 66 Eleonora Pasotti 4. Notes of Discord: Urban Cultural Policy in the Confrontational City 86 Arie Romein and Jan Jacob Trip 5. Cultural Policy and the State of Urban Development in the Capital of South Korea 111 Jong Youl Lee and Chad Anderson Part II REWRITING THE CREATIVE CITY SCRIPT 130 6. Creativity and Urban Regeneration: The Role of La Tohu and the Cirque du Soleil in the Saint-Michel Neighborhood in Montreal 131 Deborah Leslie and Norma Rantisi 7. City Image and the Politics of Music Policy in the “Live Music Capital of the World” 156 Carl Grodach ii 8. “To Have and to Need”: Reorganizing Cultural Policy as Panacea for 176 Berlin’s Urban and Economic Woes Doreen Jakob 9. Urban Cultural Policy, City Size, and Proximity 195 Chris Gibson and Gordon Waitt Part III THE IMPLICATIONS OF URBAN CULTURAL POLICY AGENDAS FOR CREATIVE PRODUCTION 221 10. The New Cultural Economy and its Discontents: Governance Innovation and Policy Disjuncture in Vancouver 222 Tom Hutton and Catherine Murray 11. Creating Urban Spaces for Culture, Heritage, and the Arts in Singapore: Balancing Policy-Led Development and Organic Growth 245 Lily Kong 12.
    [Show full text]
  • Unpacking My Collection
    University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+ University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2019 Unpacking My Collection Newell Marcel Harry University of Wollongong Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1 University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong. Recommended Citation Harry, Newell Marcel, Unpacking My Collection, Doctor of Creative Arts thesis, School of the Arts, English & Media, University of Wollongong, 2019. https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1/794 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong.
    [Show full text]
  • Hans Haacke Biography
    P A U L A C O O P E R G A L L E R Y Hans Haacke Biography 1936 Born Cologne, Germany 1956-60 Staatliche Werkakademie (State Art Academy), Kassel, Staatsexamen (equivalent of M.F.A.) 1960-61 Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17, Paris 1961 Tyler School of Fine Arts, Temple University, Philadelphia 1962 Moves to New York 1963-65 Return to Cologne. Teaches at Pädagogische Hochschule, Kettwig, and other institutions 1966-67 Teaches at University of Washington, Seattle; Douglas College, Rutgers University, New Jersey; Philadelphia College of Art 1967 - 2002 Teaches at Cooper Union, New York (Professor of Art Emeritus) 1973 Guest Professorship, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg 1979 Guest Professorship, Gesamthochschule, Essen 1994 Guest Professorship, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg 1997 Regents Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley Lives in New York (since 1965) Awards 1960 Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) 1961 Fulbright Fellowship 1973 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship 1978 National Endowment for the Arts 1991 College Art Association Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement Deutscher Kritikerpreis for 1990 Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, Oberlin College 1993 Golden Lion (shared with Nam June Paik), Venice Biennale 1997 Kurt-Eisner-Foundation, Munich Honorary Doctorate Bauhaus-Universität Weimar 2001 Prize of Helmut-Kraft-Stiftung, Stuttgart 2002 College Art Association Distinguished Teaching of Art Award 2004 Peter-Weiss-Preis, Bochum 2008 Honorary Doctorate, San Francisco Art Institute
    [Show full text]
  • WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2006: DAY for NIGHT to OPEN Signature Survey Measuring the Mood of Contemporary American Art, March 2-May 28, 2006
    Press Release Contact: Jan Rothschild, Stephen Soba, Meghan Bullock (212) 570-3633 or [email protected] www.whitney.org/press February 2006 WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2006: DAY FOR NIGHT TO OPEN Signature survey measuring the mood of contemporary American art, March 2-May 28, 2006 Peter Doig, Day for Night, 2005. Private Collection; courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin. The curators have announced their selection of artists for the 2006 Whitney Biennial, which opens to the public on March 2, and remains on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through May 28, 2006. The list of participating artists appears at the end of this release. Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night is curated by Chrissie Iles, the Whitney’s Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator, and Philippe Vergne, the Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The Biennial’s lead sponsor is Altria. "Altria Group, Inc. is proud to continue its forty year relationship with the Whitney Museum of American Art by sponsoring the 2006 Biennial exhibition," remarked Jennifer P. Goodale, Vice President, Contributions, Altria Corporate Services, Inc. "This signature exhibition of some of the most bold and inspired work coming from artists' studios reflects our company's philosophy of supporting innovation, creativity and diversity in the arts." Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night takes its title from the 1973 François Truffaut film, whose original French name, La Nuit américaine, denotes the cinematic technique of shooting night scenes artificially during the day, using a special filter. This is the first Whitney Biennial to have a title attached to it.
    [Show full text]
  • Zarouhie Abdalian We Can Decide March 11 – April 24, 2021
    Zarouhie Abdalian We can decide March 11 – April 24, 2021 Altman Siegel presents We can decide, a solo exhibition of new works by Zarouhie Abdalian. The exhibition centers around a sound installation, threnody for the unwilling martyrs, which sees Abdalian return to the use of bells as a basis for sound sculpture. Throughout We can decide, a state of suspension pervades the space of the gallery and threnody for the unwilling martyrs is its emblem. Set just slightly in motion, five brass signaling bells sound out their indeterminate status, both and alternately signifying and hailing, marking and calling, meaning and doing. In recognition of the mass murder Abdalian asks us to lay at the feet of the U.S. government, it may be read as a memorial and an incitation. Elsewhere in the gallery, two large sculptures impose themselves as nameless witnessing objects to the present conjuncture. Emptied of its cargo, a 2,500 lbs. bulk bag gapes. Nearby, the torso of an internal combustion engine stands as tribute to social labor and Promethean will. Suspended from the ceiling, a light sculpture counts out the indeterminate intervals between events, registered as flashes of brilliant energy. A poem—the exhibition’s namesake—is printed as a takeaway. The text is derived from a 2019 piece titled Rhymes and Reckonings (for Sverdlovsk and Yekaterinburg) made with collaborator Joseph Rosenzweig. The body of the text records in irregular couplets the social character of commodity production—that is, the real world from which the “readymade” objects of the exhibition are plucked. Abdalian’s interest is not so much in what any given object represents but what of its history can be clarified at the utopian (no place) site of the gallery.
    [Show full text]
  • Full Curatorial Statement (Pdf)
    "Media technology generally facilitates the suspension of disbelief; I’m trying to facilitate the resumption of disbelief." Ken Goldberg1 Conceptual artist Ken Goldberg combines robotics with cultural criticism to create art for and about the Internet. Goldberg, Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at UC Berkeley, works collaboratively with students and other colleagues to make net art that investigates age- old questions of epistemology: “How do we know what we know, and how do we know it is true?” His particular interest is in what he terms “telepistemology”--he investigates knowledge mediated through technology, a particular conundrum as more and more information is disseminated both “officially” and “unofficially” on the Internet. Over the last six years, Goldberg’s work has explored the nature of authenticity. Through a series of Internet projects, he examines telepistemological questions regarding perception, knowledge, and agency: the ability to perform actions.2 Net art will be canonized in the year 2000. Artforum, a monthly art journal, has instituted a regular column entitled "Gadget Love" dedicated to covering the "hot.list" of technology. For the first time, the Whitney Biennial, a barometer of contemporary art trends, will feature "web- related and digital art," including Goldberg's MATRIX project.3 John G. Hanhardt, former curator of film and video at the Whitney and currently senior curator for film and media arts at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, is quoted in The New York Times as saying that Internet-based work has taken about half as long as video art to be included in a Whitney Biennial.4 Hanhardt, one of a few people responsible for the canonization of video art, credits the Whitney's acceptance of the then new medium in the early to mid-1970s as laying the groundwork for rapid development and acceptance of Internet-based art.
    [Show full text]
  • Sarah Sze Work from U.S. Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale to Be Presented in New York by 2013 U
    Sarah Sze Work from U.S. Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale To be presented in New York by 2013 U. S. Pavilion Commissioner The Bronx Museum of the Arts Triple Point (Planetarium) on view July 3 through August 24, 2014 at the Bronx Museum Bronx, NY – June 27, 2014 – The Bronx Museum of the Arts will present Sarah Sze’s work Triple Point (Planetarium), one of the works created by the artist for the acclaimed U.S. Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Known for her large-scale gravity-defying sculptures, Sze transformed the U.S. Pavilion with an elaborate sequence of works collectively titled Triple Point. The Bronx Museum served as the commissioning institution for the 2013 U. S. Pavilion, and bringing the work Triple Point (Planetarium) to the museum continues the Museum’s commitment to drawing international connections for its diverse audience of Bronxites, New Yorkers, and visitors from elsewhere in the U. S. and abroad. Triple Point (Planetarium) will be on view July 3 through August 24. Sarah Sze's work attempts to navigate and model the ceaseless proliferation of information and objects in contemporary life. Incorporating elements of painting, architecture, and installation within her sculpture, Sze investigates the value we place on objects and explores how objects ascribe meaning to the places and times we inhabit. The artist employs a constellation of everyday materials in her work, ranging from found objects and photographs to handmade sculptures and living plants, creating encyclopedic and accumulative landscapes. Sze sees sculpture as evidence of behavior and she leaves her own raw process of experimentation apparent in her work.
    [Show full text]
  • The 16Th Biennale of Sydney, ‘Revolutions – Forms That Turn’
    Jodie Dalgleish, The Biennial as a Form of Contradiction JODIE DALGLEISH The Biennial as a Form of Contradiction: The 16th Biennale of Sydney, ‘Revolutions – Forms That Turn’ Abstract Large-scale international biennials of contemporary art continually present an excess of art and information within the realm of cultural tourism rather than art history. As a result, they resist scholarly analysis, particularly in terms of ‘form’. However, a kind of discourse has emerged around the ‘problems’ or ‘paradoxes’ of biennials, and common themes relating to opposing or contradictory forces have emerged. These themes provide the basis of a provisional framework of contradictions or ‘dialectics’ by which biennials can be analysed and discussed. This article presents four dialectical ‘themes’ in relation to The 16th Biennale of Sydney, ‘Revolutions – Forms That Turn’: modernity and postmodern critique; the paradox of ‘place’ as both local and global, being global while questioning ‘globalisation’; and the autonomy and politicality of art. The analysis provides insight into curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s dedication to ‘dialectical play’ within the 16 th Biennale of Sydney (described as the practice of exploring and heightening an individual’s experience of contradiction). Further, the potential for both curatorial work and biennials to provide unresolved ‘in-between’ spaces for inventiveness and new dialogue becomes more apparent. In surveying the literature on large-scale international biennials produced in recent years, it quickly becomes apparent that the biennial phenomenon resists sustained analysis according to any particular methodology or intellectual approach. 1 Art historian James Meyer made a comparable observation at a conference on the future of biennials convened by the Venice Biennale in 2005, where he identified a dearth of scholarly analysis that may be attributed to the considerable geographic spread of biennials, their temporal and popularised nature, and the ‘proliferative abundance’ of art and information they generate beyond the locus of academia.
    [Show full text]
  • Whitney Museum Announces Exhibition Schedule Through April 2022
    View from Gansevoort Street. Photograph by Ed Lederman, 2015 WHITNEY MUSEUM ANNOUNCES EXHIBITION SCHEDULE THROUGH APRIL 2022 New York, NY, October 1, 2020—The Whitney Museum of American Art today announced its schedule of exhibitions opening through April 2022. Highlighting the work of living artists, the diverse program features many artists with whom the Whitney has forged lasting dialogues, including Dawoud Bey, David Hammons, Jasper Johns, and Julie Mehretu, and debuts new installations and performances featuring works by Andrea Carlson, Martine Gutierrez, Madeline Hollander, Kamoinge Workshop, Dave McKenzie, My Barbarian, Salman Toor, and others. The Museum’s collection remains at the heart of the program and this fall a new collection installation will include Ruth Asawa, Sari Dienes, Pati Hill, Kahlil Robert Irving, Virginia Overton, Julia Phillips, and Zarina. The Museum also announced that the Whitney Biennial, its signature exhibition, has been postponed to April 2022. Announcing the exhibition schedule Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, noted: “This year, the Whitney celebrates its ninetieth anniversary and fifth year downtown. Though we were closed 1 for nearly six months as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, our work on the Museum’s program has continued uninterrupted. Over the next year and a half, we are thrilled to present an exhibition program that furthers the Museum’s commitment to fostering the work of living artists at critical moments in their careers. In November 2020, we debut Salman Toor: How Will I Know, the artist’s first solo museum show, and Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop, an exhibition that celebrates the early work of the New York-based collective.
    [Show full text]
  • Rethinking the Biennial Mphil by Project by Marieke Van Hal Date
    Rethinking the Biennial MPhil By Project by Marieke van Hal Date: September 29, 2010 Supervisors Dr. Claire Pajaczkowska, Clare Carolin Department CCA- Curating Contemporary Art Dean: Prof. Mark Nash Royal College of Art, London, UK Copyright Statement This text represents the submission for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art. This copy has been supplied for the purpose of research for private study, on the understanding that it is copyright material, and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgment. Author’s Declaration During the period of registered study in which this thesis was prepared the author has not been registered for any other academic award or qualification. The material included in this thesis has not been submitted wholly or in part for any academic award or qualification other than that for which it is now submitted. Marieke van Hal. “A twenty first century biennial will utilize calculated uncertainty and conscious incompleteness to produce a catalyst for invigorating change whilst always producing the harvest of the quiet eye.” Cedric Price 2 Index 1. Introduction 4 2. The Biennial Debate: Discussion on the Pros and Cons 7 3. Biennial Origins, a Range of Types 16 4. To Biennial or not to Biennial? The Bergen Biennial Conference and The Biennial Reader 29 5. Conclusion 36 6. Bibliography 39 7. Acknowledgments 52 Supplements: Reader for Lecturers Bergen Biennial Conference Program Localized The Biennial Reader 3 1. Introduction The biennialization process, much talked about in the international curatorial field, hasn’t been really critically assessed.
    [Show full text]